Good article, Spleen - Colin Irwin is an excellent writer. It gave me goosebumps to realise that as I read it I'm gazing out over the Leeds/Liverpool canal by the side of which Bellamy took his life. He had all the traits of an Outsider, as defined by Colin Wilson, and, as such, there's a dreadful sense of inevitability running through his life.

"[Bellamy held] a steadfastly apolitical stance (his widow Jenny says that during her time with him he voted for the Green Party)"

I'm probably not the only person to smile at that one!

The Green Party has certainly always been political - in the sense of having agendas way beyond green issues - and its politics has always been on the left. I don't know if that was as true 20 years ago as it is today, but today it's a lot further to the left than Labour is.

If he was "steadfastly apolitical" then he wouldn't have voted at all!

an interesting article.Idisagree with this statement "His most prominent disciples include Damien Barber and Jon Boden, who have both not only drawn on his material, but taken substantial influence and inspiration from his eccentric vocal mannerisms. Barber, a fellow Norfolk lad exiled to Yorkshire, was even mentored to some degree by him and it was Bellamy who christened him The Demon Barber, a name he has subsequently used with great success for the band he now fronts. Damien in my opinion bears no resemblance STYLE WISE TO Peter Bellamy,I hear more the influence of Dave Burland, the singer that reminds me most of Peter Bellamy is the Teesside singer Paul Dalton.

Bearing in mind the furore on a couple of other threads, it occurs to me that the BBC could do worse than make a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award to PB. His achievements during his life were astounding, and with hindsight not only now appear even more astonishing but also are perhaps better appreciated. 20 years after his death his influence on a new generation is huge. You couldn't say that about many - not even, dare I say, Ewan McColl or Bert Lloyd.

Maybe it's time, Howard, for there to be a respectable/ respected organisation set up some sort of folk "Hall Of Fame" with an annual induction of people dead and alive who deserve that accolade and recognition. Not just musicians either.

I knew Pete Bellamy at Norwich Art School when he was about 18 and we were close friends, sharing a common interest in all kinds of folk-music and blues. We remained friends all his life, even though we were rarely in contact. He was even kind enough to sing at my wedding, stunning the guests with his songs (as well as his charm and his unconventional appearance!)

I thought Colin Irwin's article was really beautiful. It was touching, informative and a fitting tribute.

Bellamy was, I think, probably the most brilliant and innovative artist on the British folk-scene, and pitifully underrated. How the BBC (supposed guardian of culture) could have failed to put on 'The Transports' for the Australian Bi-Centenary, I shall never know. There should be some kind of massive award, statue or something, to mark the memory of this remarkable purveyor of (mostly) English folk-song, and Irwin's article is certainly a step in the right direction. Why can't BBC4 do something now?!

Bellamy put songs together with such consummate skill, the like of which I've never seen. Some of his own compositions were so good, with such a feeling for the genre, that they appear absolutely authentic. (The only give-away is the is the poetic skill with which they have been crafted -a level of perfection which few, if any, composers in the past could have matched.)

I shall miss Peter Bellamy for ever, as must anyone with an appreciation for the very best in English folk-song. Colin Irwin, who can write infinitely better than I can, has provided a memorial in words for which we should all be grateful.

Peter COULD be somewhat caustic if anyone upset him - I recall him starting his second half set at The Folk Chmber in H W with a ten minute Treatise on the origins of Cowboy Hollers , WITH Vocal illustrations (Informative , but NOT good entertainment ) because someone made an adverse comment to him during the interval . And I agree that he IS deserving of all the awards that could be made - His input to the British Folk scene is incalculable

I have never that greatly rated Colin as a writer, tho he has struck me on the few occasion we have met [all many years ago now] as a nice enough guy; and he did always have this tendency to rush into print without checking his facts {Auchterarder!...}.

I have a sneaking regard for him, however, for all those times way-way-back-when, in the 70s-80s, that he would devote a whole MM column to denouncing little-me for something I had recently written about the traditional/contemp divide in Folk Review or The Guardian ~~ the sort of publicity you just couldn't get by paying for it...

Retrospective thanks again then, mate ~~ from a voice from the far-off past!

Regarding the 'critical piece' that Karl Dallas later regretted (it appeared in the then Folk Roots' March 1991 issue), Peter's problem with it was not that it was damning of his music (which it wasn't; Dallas was an admirer), but that it dwelt on his politics in a way that Peter believed would be detrimental to his career, by suggesting that his music had a right-wing agenda. Peter wasn't blameless in creating that impression, however, since he was quoted in the article as railing aginst the lefty tendencies of the folk scene in general, and offering up waspish pen-pictures of certain prominent performers who'd displeased him by abandonning traditional songs for political ones.

Whether or not he was quoted correctly (and I suspect he was, having heard the same kind of thing from him in person several times), he certainly regarded the article as a shot in the foot and a missed opportunity, not least because a glowing live review had appeared in the previous issue - written by me, as it happens - and he had reason to believe that fashion might just be swinging his way again. I remember wondering, as I wrote that review, how come the towering performer I'd just seen had been reduced to selling bootleg cassettes at his own gigs, instead of being the toast of the folk world. A great pity that the feature article didn't relaunch his career in the way it might have done, but instead caused ill feeling all round.

Brian ~~ In what way 'bootleg'? They were his own cassettes to sell, not illegally smuggled by devious underground means. I agree with you that the necessity for such a recourse was a pity, as he couldn't find a proper label to issue proper recordings commercially. But I still don't quite get the force of 'bootleg'.

I think the LPs he'd copied were from labels that had gone bust. I seem to remember a self-deprecating remark at that gig, along the lines that record companies that had made the commercial blunder of releasing Peter Bellamy albums were doomed to bankruptcy.